Welcome to my blog Upstate Girl, (a.k.a Follow Your Bliss Part II), I am an independently published author. This blog is all about writing and the stuff that inspires me to write, the joys and obstacles that come along with the writer's life, and my fascination with the psychology of people and what makes them tick...the human condition, as is...and my love for words, playing with them and making sense of them...and I throw in a few photos from my acre of the world just to make things pretty...sometimes there are things I have no words for, only pictures will do.

*Copyright notice* All photos, writing, and artwork are mine (
© Laura J. Wellner), unless otherwise noted, please be a peach, if you'd like to use my work for a project or you just love it and must have it, message me and we'll work out the details...it's simple...JUST ASK, please.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

Andrew Wyeth

What can be said? What shall I say here? I'll come up with something...

Andrew Wyeth was such a fine fellow in the art world, voted both the most overrated and the most underrated artist at the same time...the critics hated him, the public adored him...every article printed yesterday and today have said much the same things...so I need to make this more personal...

I grew up searching through the pages of a book full with his influential imagery of lonely hills and bare trees, and that crisp wintry quality of light, the egg tempera precision of grass and the essence of dry brush...and in the subdued hues, and then the fantastic pink of Christina's dress...gorgeous! Heartbreaking. I used to make up stories about this lone woman crawling in a field...I very often felt like her, especially during those impressionable adolescent years when everything felt 'just so', well, you know, nothing seemed settled, so much to look forward to, so much waiting for the future to come...I don't know exactly what I was searching for back then, but I looked the brushstrokes off the pages each time I flipped through the pictures...never daring to copy him...

I was a wee girl with a pony tail when I was introduced to this infamous painting...the Lyons elementary school art teacher would put up posters of famous artworks around the classroom, and we created a small book with white paper with a construction paper cover (I usually picked blue, sometimes purple) , we were to fill up this little book with the pertinent information about the artist and the painting researched at the library (or the Encyclopedia Britannica at home, we had an impressive set from 1967 or was it 1969? I loved reading them on rainy days!) When I think back on this...it was a pleasant time spent learning about art, and in a way, it prepared me for my professional position at the art collection where I am the Registrar...kinda funny how things are...how we turn out later...

I finally saw Christina's World in person at MOMA a couple of years ago when I happened to be in NYC for Christo's "Gates" project in Central Park. It was such a giant of a painting in my life, but in reality, so petite and lovely, complex, yet simple...mysterious and personal...how odd to come around the corner and there she is, it made my eyes misty seeing her there...yellow ochre, gray, and a shock of delicate pink...

The man who was the legendary painter of such melancholy scenes is gone from this world, he will be missed, but his generous legacy is with us, a treasure trove of mystery and beauty, right down to the last blade of grass...

2 comments:

The Ginger Darlings said...

It is very lovely to meet you and I look forward to getting to know you better. Waving to you from Wales.
I love paintings that make stories dance in the mind.
This painting is haunting.
jackie and the gingers

Anonymous said...

"...imagery of lonely hills and bare trees, and that crisp wintry quality of light..."

These are the things that so affected me from an early age as well. Thank you, Laura.